Purdue University and USDA-Agricultural Research Service scientists have discovered that a type of gene in grain-producing plants halts infection by a disease-causing fungus that can destroy crops vital for human food supplies.

Novel molecular techniques have been responsible for major strides in microbial ecology and are addressing broadly important scientific questions about the variety and distribution of microbial life, according to an article in the February 2008 issue of BioScience. The article, “Progress in the Ecological Genetics and Biodiversity of Freshwater Bacteria,” by Jürg B. Logue, Helmut Bürgmann, and Christopher T. Robinson, inaugurates a series of articles in BioScience on the theme “21st Century Directions in Biology.” Most issues of BioScience will include an article about the impacts of new molecular techniques on a range of biological fields.

Although there is unquestionably much left to be discovered about life on Earth, charismatic animals like mammals are usually well documented, and it is rare to find a new species today—especially from a group as intriguing as the elephant-shrews, monogamous mammals found only in Africa with a colorful history of misunderstood ancestry. Like shrews, these small, furry mammals eat mostly insects. Early scientists named them elephant-shrews not because they thought the animals were related to elephants but because of their long, flexible snouts. Ironically, recent molecular research has shown that they are actually more closely related to elephants than to shrews. Members of a supercohort called Afrotheria that evolved in Africa over 100 million years ago, their relatives include elephants, sea cows, and the aardvark. Until recently, only 15 species of elephant-shrews, also called sengis to avoid confusion with true shrews, were known to science. However, in March of 2006, Galen Rathbun of the California Academy of Sciences, Francesco Rovero of the Trento Museum of Natural Sciences, and a team of collaborators confirmed the existence of a new species that lives only in two high-altitude forest blocks in the mountains of south-central Tanzania. Their discovery will appear in the February 4 issue of The Journal of Zoology published by Wiley-Blackwell (available online on January 31).

That the cell nurturing growth factor interleukin-7 can help ramp up the ability of the immune system to remember the pathogenic villains it encounters is well known.

Rainfall data from a NASA satellite show that summertime storms in the southeastern United States shed more rainfall midweek than on weekends. Scientists say air pollution from humans is likely driving that trend.